It was just over two years ago when I showed up here on SLAMonline to announce that I wasn’t going to be writing on SLAMonline as often as I used to.

And today I’m here to tell you I’m not going to be here at all, not anymore. But I’ll get to that in a second.

When I was in college and trying to figure out how to make a career at this writing stuff, I would go to the grocery store late at night and spend hours reading magazines on the newsstand. It was late enough that there weren’t other people there to bother me, other than the angry dudes re-stocking the shelves. I was so broke that I couldn’t actually buy the magazines, so I’d leaf through them carefully and put them back uncreased. One night I picked up this issue of SLAM, and read Scoop Jackson’s story on Webber, then read everything else in the issue, and my mind was just kind of blown. I knew that this was a magazine I wanted to be part of, by hook or by crook, whatever it took.

And now, all these years later, it happened. I wrote a few pieces for SLAM, and then SLAM hired me full-time, and then I wrote so many words for the magazine and the website over the last 15 years that I have totally lost track of my production. I’ve been involved with SLAM since Issue 37, over 130 issues. I’ve traveled on SLAM’s nickel from Hawaii to Barcelona, and I’ve seen 26 of the NBA’s 30 teams play in their home arenas. I’ve played HORSE with LeBron, driven around Coney Island with Starbury, sat in traffic on the Vegas strip with CP3, talked with Michael Jordan. And all of that is just barely scratching the surface of what a crazy experience this ride has been.

But BY FAR, my favorite part of the ride with SLAM has been all of you. I started writing The Links every day in the summer of 2001, and immediately a community developed. I would write each day, and you guys would flood me with emails. Then some genius invented these things called “comments sections,” and we could all talk in real time. Hours were spent discussing important hot NBA topics, from Kidd vs Marbury to the glory of Ben Handlogten to man versus beast. I talked with you guys on 9/11. We talked when I got engaged to my wife and after I got married. You guys helped me name my dog, Starbury. (She says hello, by the way.) We talked whenever we experienced death and birth and joy and sadness.

And then two years ago, I stepped away because I needed to try something else. I was burned out, and as I wrote at the time, I wanted some free time and some freedom to try other things. In the time since, I’ve been able to do a lot of those things, from co-founding a website to writing a lot for my favorite general interest magazine, GQ, to writing for the freaking New York Times. I’ve been able to write about everything from football to TV to food to fashion. I’ve also continued writing a feature for each issue of SLAM, as well as appearing on shows on NBA TV and co-hosting the Hang Time Podcast for NBA.com. Oh, and I haven’t written about this here, but my wife and I had a son. He’s just over four months old now, and he is incredible. Hopefully he won’t mind that I named him Dominique Starbury Whitaker.

But as much fun as all the random stuff I’ve done the last few years has been, for me it will always be about the NBA. I didn’t choose the NBA, the NBA chose me. Two weeks ago I was in Atlanta and on the set at NBA TV for an episode of “The Jump.” We had a segment about the new Hall of Fame enshrinees, and as part of that topic we had a video piece on Gary Payton. We were sitting there on set watching this as it aired, as highlight after highlight played, and there was a brief clip of GP ripping the ball from an opponent, knocking that opponent to the ground, and running to the other end for a dunk. As we all chuckled at this play, one of the production people on set wondered aloud, “Who was that he knocked over?” And within about .00001 milliseconds, I blurted out, “Robert Pack.”

This is just the way my brain works: I saw a Denver jersey, I saw a number 14, I saw a hightop fade, I knew it had to be during the ‘90s because Gary Payton was involved, and so without any real complex thought, my brain just spat out the correct answer: Robert Pack. The NBA is embedded so deep in my mind that I can’t forget this stuff if I wanted to.

And so I’m getting back to basketball, and here’s the news: Starting Monday, I will be writing about the NBA full-time for NBA Digital. NBA Digital is part of Turner Sports, and includes stuff like NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA Mobile, and…I don’t know, a bunch of other stuff. Most relevantly, I will be taking over the All Ball Blog on NBA.com. I’ll still be involved with all the other stuff I do there, from “The Jump” on NBA TV to the Hang Time Podcast with my guys Sekou Smith and Rick Fox, as well as doing chats on TNT Overtime during the TNT games. I’ve been working with Turner in a part-time capacity the last few years, and have had nothing but great experiences. So when this opportunity came about, I couldn’t say no. I’ll still be based here in NYC, and I’m excited to make this move, to turn my attention to this blog and have some fun with it. Throw me a bookmark or add me to your RSS reader or whatever, and stop by for a visit.

All that said, you haven’t seen the very last of me in SLAM, because I’ve finished a few pieces that will appear in the next issue of the magazine. And who knows, maybe I’ll surface for SLAM’s 300th issue to write a think piece on the legacy of Chad Ford’s mock drafts.

On my way out the door, I do want to say thank you to everyone at SLAM and in the SLAM Dome. It was genuinely an honor to have worked with such an incredible group of people. I worked directly for three of the most talented editors-in-chief out there (Russ, Ryan and Ben). And then there was Susan and Melissa and Khalid and Sam and…well, I don’t want to list any more names because I will certainly forget someone, but there have been dozens of smart, talented people I’ve been fortunate enough to work alongside. And I probably should thank the common thread running through all the different people I’ve worked with: SLAM publisher Dennis Page, who is one of the most brilliant and hilarious people in publishing. (You remember how I’d occasionally start posts with, “What up, peoples?” That was straight from Dennis.)

In that post two years ago when I was going from full-time to part-time, I noted that I was no longer going to be in the center of the huddle, and that I was instead going to be one of the people on the outskirts. Well, now I’m going to be in the stands, watching intently, munching on popcorn and drinking an overpriced beverage. And I’ll be rooting for SLAM every chance I get.

I was sad about the Grizzlies trading Rudy Gay for a number of reasons, and I promise the instant dating of SLAM 165 was only one of them. To me, the Grizzlies had built a nice thing, with a steady, rugged lineup that had been together for a few years and could compete for a title this season. I knew Rudy’s salary made him a long-term liability and that front-office changes in Memphis would mean a possible rehaul of their entire basketball staff, but I felt all of that could have waited for after the season. I think SLAMonline readers, who tend to be emotional like myself, for the most part agreed with my take.

Via Twitter, I got a different take from my man John Schuhmann of NBA.com. He loved the trade for the Grizz long-term and even saw it making sense in the short-term. It became clear we weren’t going to be able to state our positions 140 characters at a time so I asked John if I could call him on the phone and record the convo for SLAM Radio. He kindly obliged. Please click on the play button above to listen, and if you want more from John you should follow him on Twitter (@johnschuhmann) and check out his work on the NBA.com Hang Time Blog.

Like anyone else who’s visited the NBA’s official website since the lockout began, Kevin Love thinks it looks absolutely ridiculous, having no mention of any current players. From the NY Post: “They took everything off,’ Love told The Post. ‘I laughed, but it’s not funny. You take everyone off? You go on our website and it’s the dancers and Crutch our mascot. I think it’s cool for the charity events, but not using any of the players, it’s silly. Let’s get this thing resolved and play basketball. It’s disheartening to fans and to us. Let’s get it figured out.’ … Love believes NBA games will be missed but feels the 2011-12 season will be longer than the 50-game slate of 1999. ‘My gut feeling is it’s going to be a long time,’ said Love. ‘I’m hoping and praying it’s not. I want to be able to say I played 15 years, a full 15 years. But it’s looking like it’s going to be a long time. Hopefully it will be more than 50 games, and we won’t have to play back-to-back-to-back. I really hope it is all 82.’”

I haven’t blogged in the last week because I just needed to catch my breath. In the last three months we’ve cranked out five issues. You’ve seen four: Kobe/LeBron; SLAM 140; SLAM 141; World Basketball. And Kicks 11 will drop early next week. And now we’re hard at work on SLAM 142. I’m filling in here and there writing news things on SLAMonline, going to the World Basketball Festival, and I turned in about 95 percent of my book earlier this week. Also, I’ve got a couple of other things going on that I’m not allowed to talk about yet but that will be dope.

So…I’m here, but I’m also not here. In the meantime, some other things…

• You might have heard about the World Basketball Festival, which is going down in NYC right now. Well, the WBF kicked off last night with a big event at Radio City Music Hall, which I was lucky enough to score a ticket for.

When we first heard about the WBF, it was originally announced that there was going to be a basketball game played in the middle of Times Square. For whatever reason — I’m guessing a combination of weather fears and permits — almost immediately the location was changed to Radio City. Last night, as Ben and I walked up Sixth Avenue toward Radio City, the sky started opening up and the rain began coming down. So as it turned out, having it in Radio City was the right move.

We knew the event was going to be a scrimmage for Team USA followed by what was being billed as a “special music performance.” The iconic marquee outside Radio City revealed the secret, as it added a few words to the phrase: “special music performance by Jay-Z.” And even though it was on the marquee outside, on the inside, the people on the mic’s (Kevin Frazier and the always entertaining Anthony Anderson) never said it was going to be Jay-Z, like they were still keeping a secret or something.

Even though I’ve lived in NYC for a decade now, I’d never been inside Radio City Music Hall. It was cool enough to be in such a historic theater, even cooler to see a full basketball court set up on the stage. It fit perfectly on the stage, and made for a really dramatic setting.

Maybe too dramatic, actually, as the game itself wasn’t much fun to watch. It was just a scrimmage, after all, so the guys weren’t going all out. Also, it was just too inconsequential to be riveting viewing. What makes the Olympics and the World Championships fun to watch is the national pride at stake. In this game, there were no stakes, other than this team trying to get ready for the Worlds. (And on that tip, my man Matt Lawyue broke down how the team is looking.)

When the game ended, DJ Premier got on the wheels of steel and started playing stuff to keep everyone distracted, and a curtain came down on the stage as they prepared for Jay-Z. I had just assumed Jay was going to come out and do two or three songs with a CD as his backing track, but after a delay of about thirty minutes, I started getting a sense it might be a real concert. About forty-five minutes later, the large screens on either side of the stage switched over to a clock that started counting down from ten minutes, which sent all the kids in the lower levels into hyperdrive.

After the ten minutes had elapsed, the curtain dropped and there was a full band on stage, including a full horn section. There were huge video screens behind the band, and then there on the stage was Jay-Z, the most iconic rapper alive, in an iconic theater, performing some of the most famous songs of the last decade.

And there Ben and I were in the stands. Doing our jobs.

I have to say it was a good day.

• One thing we did the last few weeks was set up a SLAM account on Tumblr. We really did it just to reserve the SLAMonline name on there, but now that it’s up and running, it’s kind of cool. It’s a good way to just see everything that we’ve posted on SLAMonline in the order that it’s gone up. It’s obviously not as rich an environment as SLAMonline, but it works. If you’re already on Tumblr, follow us and we’ll follow back.

• This video has gotten some popularity over the last week and it reminds me of something that happened to me one time.

Back in 2003, I was in Dallas working on a feature about Dirk Nowitzki. I was there for a preseason game, and I guess there wasn’t a lot of media there, because I was given a seat at a press table courtside on the front row, just along the baseline.

You know how every once in a while some NBA player crashes into the press table and wrecks some poor guy’s laptop? I was on high alert, because I didn’t want that to be me. Any time a player got within about 10 feet, I’d make sure to look up and be ready to move if I needed to.

At some point in the game, the teams were in action right in front of me, and Steve Nash made a one-handed bullet pass to a cutting player. The player missed the pass, and all of a sudden the ball was whizzing at my head at about 200 mph. I had just seconds to comprehend what was happening, and I realized I really had two choices:

1) Attempt to catch the ball, which wasn’t a sure thing, considering my hands weren’t in position to catch the ball. Also, if I tried to catch the ball and for whatever reason was unable to catch it and it ended up bouncing into my face or something, there was a chance the play would live in perpetuity on some blooper reel somewhere.

2) Duck.

Since the first option was so fraught with peril, I chose the second, more simple option.

I ducked, and the ball zipped over my head. And it drilled a 40-something year old woman sitting behind me directly in the face. POW!

I grabbed the ball and tossed it to the ref as the woman assured everyone that she wasn’t injured, and play continued. I turned around to check on the woman, and she had her hands clutched to her nose, as reactionary tears streamed from her eyes. She looked at me and, her voice breaking like her nose probably was, said, “Why did you duck?”

What I didn’t say but really wanted to: “Why didn’t you?”

• Last thing, in case you want to kill two hours…

I’ve been sitting in with my main man Sekou Smith the last few weeks co-hosting his NBA.com Hang Time Podcast, and we’ve had a lot of fun. Here’s the show from two weeks ago with guests John Schuhmann from NBA.com and Ben Golliver from BlazersEdge…

And here’s the show from this week which was tremendous, with our guests the amazing Coach John Thompson and recently returned SLAM columnist Josh Childress…

You may ask yourself, Who is this Mr. Pingping? it’s more rhetorical than you may realize. If only we knew who this little fella really was.

I was only familiar with Mr. Pingping for three short — really short — years. We discovered Mr. Pingping here on The Links in the summer of 2007, when I wrote a post one day and kind of threw in a link to a story about the world’s tallest and shortest man meeting. The world’s shortest man was the recently recognized He Pingping, and the AP story about their meeting referred to him as Mr. Pingping, which just sounded awesome. After I found that initial link, everyone here at the office went crazy talking about that story, so I wrote another post a day later, and then another a few days later. Mr. Pingping became to The Links what people on the internet today would call a “meme,” basically a running topic of conversation. And when news of his tragic death broke yesterday, I received about 20 emails from you guys over the last 12 hours.

Mr. Pingping’s death is a tragedy, yes, but we never really knew him anyway. Sure we saw videos and a succession of amusing photos, but I was hoping that being recognized as the world’s smallest man would make Mr. Pingping a worldwide star. He could have become a popular rapper, run the point in the D-League or starred on reality television. But instead, fame seemed to snuff out his li’l light.

Did He Pingping? Oh yes, yes He did.

I’ll close this with one last photo of Mr. Pingping. Life-size, even:

(OK, it’s not really life-size. Or is it?)

• Oh, hey, I don’t think I mentioned it here, but last weekend I finished writing my book. It’s about the Braves and Bobby Cox and me, and I hope very much that you — yes you! — will buy a copy when it comes out. When writing it, I was very conscious of trying to balance it between being heavy on baseball and being heavy on funny/interesting stories about life. Then I let Wifey read the first chapter, and she hates baseball, but she liked all the Greg Maddux stuff I wrote more than the stuff I wrote about myself. So I’m not sure what that means.

Anyway, the manuscript I turned in is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written, roughly the length of 40 SLAM cover stories. I’m used to writing SLAM cover stories, and I’ve gotten relatively good at organization information to fit that specific allotment of space. But writing a book was like wrestling a grizzly bear or maybe trying to fit Eddy Curry into Nate Robinson’s old uniform. Somehow, I think I pulled it off.

Though I broke my couch in the process. Seriously. I have an “office” in our apartment, where I have a desk and a desktop computer and all that, and the plan was that I would write there, as if that space would create some discipline or inspiration. It didn’t, though. So I ended up writing the entire thing sitting in the same spot on the couch where I’ve written pretty much everything I’ve done for SLAM over the last five years, since we got that couch, and using the same laptop computer I’ve had forever. And now the couch has a dent in it.

So the good news is that’s off my plate. The bad news is I feel like I need a vacation. I can’t really express how much I was looking forward to having last weekend off to do nothing, the first weekend off in as long as I can remember. And then I ended up right there in that same spot on the couch all weekend writing the cover story for the next issue of SLAM (which we’re finishing up as I type this).

Yeah. Anyway, all of that to say hopefully I can find somewhere to recharge my batteries, and then I’ll be popping in around here a little more often as we head toward the Playoffs.

• One other quick link today: NBA.com is launching a podcast with my dudes Sekou Smith and Vince Thomas co-hosting, and they had Dennis Scott and myself on yesterday for their first show. (Here’s a direct link to the audio file.)

Hopefully they will have me on the show again once they figure out how to have people on the phone without sounding like they’re being autotuned.